Over the last few days, Microsoft invited 5,000 private testers to try out …

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Over the last few days, Microsoft invited 5,000 private testers to try out Windows Live Messenger 9.0 beta. A major upgrade over the current Windows Live Messenger 8.5, it is scheduled for public release at the end of 2008 or early 2009. Inevitably, the download has been leaked, and Softpedia has it available.

Ironically, the folks over at CyberNet—who received an invite, noted that the e-mail they received emphasized the private nature of the beta. According to them, the invitation mail goes like this:

In bold, they put "if the build gets out too widely and starts causing problems on the service we may have to shut it down. We don’t want to do that and we know you don’t want that to happen, so please keep it to yourself."

Well, it is obvious that someone didn't bother with keeping it to themselves, and now its all over the 'Net. In summary, if you download it, but find that it stops working after a while, don't be surprised.

We ran a write-up just a couple of days ago on the new features found in Messenger 9.0 over here.